UN negotiations | World climate summit in times of standstill

In the next two weeks it will become clear which direction international climate policy is taking. Photo: AFP/Goksel YAPAR World climate summits are often linked to the places in which they take place: the best-known example is the one in Paris in 2015, counting the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) - where the climate treaty was adopted. The 2021 summit in Glasgow, Scotland will also mark a climate policy milestone; For the first time, all countries committed to working towards phasing out fossil fuel combustion.

The 31st World Climate Summit starting on Monday in Antalya, Turkey, to which around 40,000 participants and representatives from around 200 countries are expected, already has three innovations: For the first time, two countries are hosting a COP. Turkey provides the summit president and oversees the so-called Action Agenda. Australia is taking care of the actual negotiations. In addition, after a decade, the Paris Climate Agreement has been cast into a comprehensive set of rules and must now be implemented in concrete climate policies. COP 31 is the first conference at which politicians and scientists no longer officially assume that the Paris 1.5 degree target can be met. The Earth will exceed the limit in the next few years and enter at least a temporary “overshoot”.

According to forecasts, the increase in global mean temperature can at best be limited to 1.8 degrees by the end of the century. If states only implement the climate measures to which they have so far committed, we will end up with 2.6 degrees. The limit of 1.5 degrees is considered a kind of danger threshold, after which many climate tipping points threaten to collapse. According to climate researchers, for the best possible overshoot path, global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) must fall by at least 18 percent by 2030 compared to 2025 and by almost 70 percent by 2040.

In fact, a GHG reduction of only 5 to 8 percent is currently expected by 2030. The gap continues to grow - and how the billions of tons of CO2 can be removed from the atmosphere to reduce the overshoot is completely unclear.

That's not enough. The global community is currently grappling with a variety of crises: geopolitical tensions are rising, armed conflicts are increasing and the international legal system is crumbling. Added to this is the energy price crisis triggered by the Iran war. It is also becoming increasingly expensive to compensate for the consequences of extreme weather. And this at a time when the scope for public budgets is increasingly narrowing. International climate finance is also suffering from this. Experts speak of a polycrisis in the climate crisis. The world is also in a political overshoot.

There is no quick improvement in climate protection in sight. The rapid growth of renewable energies in electricity and increasingly in transport is continuing. However, the hope that this would also reduce emissions has not yet been fulfilled. The reason is the increasing demand for energy in the world. This can be covered by the expansion of renewables, but it is not possible to noticeably replace fossil fuels. Furthermore, the growth in renewables is not distributed fairly globally. 86 percent of the new capacities will be built in Asia, Europe and North America - poorer regions of the world in particular are left empty-handed.

Two initiatives will be discussed at COP 31 to address this issue. Firstly, there is TAFF. The abbreviation stands for Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels. As a continuation of the Glasgow decision, many countries want to push forward a concrete, binding roadmap for the global phase-out of coal, oil and gas. This was largely initiated by Colombia and the Netherlands at last year's climate conference in Brazil.

In April 2026 there was a first, globally acclaimed conference in Santa Marta, Colombia. The aim of TAFF is to bring together states, science, business and civil society to initiate the transition away from fossil fuels.

The other initiative that spreads hope for Antalya is the so-called Global Electrification Pledge. According to the hosts' wishes, the states should commit to covering at least 35 percent of their final energy with electricity by 2035.

Even Germany has a lot to nibble on at this goal. In this country, the share of electricity in final energy is only around 22 percent. Oil and gas are still being burned heavily in traffic, heating and industry.

Whether electrification benefits the climate depends crucially on whether the electricity comes from renewable sources and is used efficiently - the increase in renewables must not be offset by the increasing hunger for energy.

However, the Turkish COP presidency apparently doesn't want to know anything about the priority given to green electricity. “It plans not to commit to a green goal, but only to a general goal for electrification,” explains Ines Dombrowsky from the German Institute of Development and Sustainability. The economist believes it is urgent to demand a green target, consistent with the TAFF initiative. “Otherwise, the electrification debate risks leading to a distraction from other important issues such as adaptation financing,” she fears

"As long as the industrialized countries are not prepared to open up their financing, there will be no progress elsewhere either."

It is questionable whether Turkey and Australia will support green electrification in the negotiations. Turkey is the largest coal-fired power producer in Europe, and Australia is a leading exporter of hard coal and liquid gas.

There is another flaw with TAFF and also with the electric target. They are currently only part of the so-called Action Agenda. This is a collection of intergovernmental initiatives that has grown over the years, on which not all states, but only different coalitions of willing people, have been able to agree.

The 35x35 Electric and TAFF initiatives will only become truly globally binding if they appear in official COP decision documents. For the experts, whether the states of the global south in particular agree to this and the summit in Antalya will be a success depends crucially on the responsiveness of the industrialized countries when it comes to climate financing. As is well known, annual funding here is expected to increase to $300 billion by 2035. According to current information, climate finance in 2024 amounted to around $137 billion.

In fact, only a third of this money consists of grants, the majority are loans, which are often granted at market conditions, criticizes Jan Kowalzig from the development organization Oxfam. In this context, he admits that Germany is still one of the largest donors of climate finance, but funding has been reduced from 6 billion euros annually to the current 4.7 billion euros. Further cuts are planned for the next few years. To compensate, the federal government wants to grant more loans and mobilize more private funds. However, this shifts the focus of the use of resources, warns Kowalzig. Money would then flow more into the energy transition in emerging countries and less into reconstruction after natural disasters or into climate adaptation.

Adaptation is not a profitable “business case,” explains Sabine Minninger from the Protestant aid organization Bread for the World. “Building a dike in Bangladesh means that the next cyclone can clear it away,” says the climate consultant.

In 2024, of the 137 billion euros in climate financing, 35 billion were used for climate adaptation. There is a seemingly absurd dispute between industrialized and developing countries about increasing these funds. It has already been decided to triple the adjustment funds by 2035 - as part of the 300 billion package - but the countries cannot agree on which basis this should be calculated. “Climate adaptation is politically on the back foot,” says Minninger, who has no illusions. The dispute over the adjustment even has the potential to paralyze COP 31 right from the start.

Oxfam expert Kowalzig is already rather pessimistic about possible concrete results: "We can already see that the industrialized countries are not prepared to do anything about climate financing." Some of the petrostates would in turn use this as tactical leverage to prevent progress elsewhere. That has been the case for the last few years. “As long as the industrialized countries are not prepared to open up their financing, there will be no progress elsewhere either,” predicts Kowalzig.

In this respect, the summit in Antalya would not differ from many of its predecessors. Despite the overshoot, it could become a symbol of standstill.

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